Recent developments are suggestive of the ominous possibility of an imminent Third World War. We present some new information and recap and further analyze stories covered in previous programs in order to underscore and highlight the potential devastation of these events.

As the furor (“fuehrer”?) surrounding the potentially lethal political hoax known as “Russia-gate” gains momentum, it should be noted that the point man for the Trump business interests in their dealings with Russia is Felix Sater. A Russian-born immigrant, Sater is a professional criminal and a convicted felon with historical links to the Mafia. Beyond that, and more importantly, Sater is an FBI informant and a CIA contract agent: “. . . . There is every indication that the extraordinarily lenient treatment resulted from Sater playing a get-out-of-jail free card. Shortly before his secret guilty plea, Sater became a freelance operative of the Central Intelligence Agency. One of his fellow stock swindlers, Salvatore Lauria, wrote a book about it. The Scorpion and the Frog is described on its cover as ‘the true story of one man’s fraudulent rise and fall in the Wall Street of the nineties.’ According to Lauria–and the court files that have been unsealed–Sater helped the CIA buy small missiles before they got to terrorists. He also provided other purported national security services for a reported fee of $300,000. Stories abound as to what else Sater may or may not have done in the arena of national security. . . .”

Sater was active on behalf of the Trumps in the fall of 2015: “. . . . Sater worked on a plan for a Trump Tower in Moscow as recently as the fall of 2015, but he said that had come to a halt because of Trump’s presidential campaign. . . .”

Sater was initiating contact between the Russians and “Team Trump” in January of this year: “ . . . . Nevertheless, in late January, Sater and a Ukrainian lawmaker reportedly met with Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, at a New York hotel. According to the [New York] Times, they discussed a plan that involved the U.S. lifting sanctions against Russia, and Cohen said he hand-delivered the plan in a sealed envelope to then-national security advisor Michael Flynn. Cohen later denied delivering the envelope to anyone in the White House, according to the Washington Post. . . .”

A stunning development concerns extreme reticence on the part of the U.S. intelligence community:

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence had an “interesting” response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit demanding the release of the classified report given to President Obama back in January purporting to show the Russian government was behind the hacks. According to the ODNI, the requested document would present a risk to human intelligence sources by revealing the comparative weight given to human vs technical evidence, risking US sources and methods. But the ODNI went further, suggesting that even releasing a fully redacted document would present similar risks!

It is NOT easy to see the ODNI’s reluctance to release even a fully-redacted copy of the report as anything but disingenuous. In the context of potentially devastating deterioration of Russian/U.S. relations over Syria, Ukraine, and the Russian “election-hacking” uproar, the ODNI’s behavior cannot be anything but disquieting:

” . . . . The intelligence official argued that a redacted version of the original report would allow a trained eye to assess ‘comparative weight’ of human intelligence and signals intelligence reporting included in the compendium. Release of some of the information the privacy-focused organization wants made public ‘could prove fatal to U.S. human intelligence sources,’ [Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Intelligence Integration Edward] Gistaro warned.

Gistaro also appears to argue that even if officials blacked out the whole report, highly classified information would be at risk.

‘I agree with the [National Intelligence Council] that a heavily or even fully redacted version of the classified report can not be publicly released without jeopardizing national security information properly classified as SECRET or TOP SECRET,’ he wrote. . . . ‘The ODNI should release the complete report to EPIC so that the public and the Congress can understand the full extent of the Russian interference with the 2016 Presidential election,’ EPIC’s Marc Rotenberg told POLITICO Tuesday. ‘It is already clear that government secrecy is frustrating meaningful oversight. The FBI, for example, will not even identify the states that were targeted by Russia.’ . . . ”

With the high-profile hacks being attributed–almost certainly falsely–to Russia, there are ominous developments taking place that may well lead to a Third World War. During the closing days of his Presidency, Obama authorized the planting of cyber weapons on Russian computer networks. Obama did this after talking with Putin on the Hot Line, established to prevent a Third World War. Putin denied interfering in the U.S. election.

The conclusion that Russia hacked the U.S. election on Putin’s orders appears to have been based on a CIA source in the Kremlin. Even when that intelligence was delivered, other agencies weren’t ready to accept the CIA’s conclusion and it took intelligence from another nation (not named) to provide the final intelligence tipping point that led to a broad-based conclusion the not only was the Russian government behind the cyberattacks but that Vladimir Putin himself ordered it.

That ally’s intelligence is described as “the most critical technical intelligence on Russia,” however the NSA still wasn’t convinced based on what sounds like a lack of confidence in that source. Thus, it looks like a CIA Kremlin source and an unnamed foreign intelligence agency with questionable credentials are the basis of what appears to be a likely future full-scale US/Russian cyberwar.

Of paramount significance is the fact that IF, on Putin’s orders (and we are to believe such) Russia continued to hack U.S. computer systems to influence the election, Putin would have to have gone utterly mad. Those hacks would have precluded any rapprochement between Russia and the United States under a President Trump. There is no indication that Putin went off the deep end.

Also auguring a possible Third World War are two developments in Syria. Seymour Hersh published an article in “Die Welt” revealing that, not only was the April 4 alleged Sarin attack NOT a chemical weapons attack but there was widespread knowledge of this in American military and intelligence circles.

What did the intelligence community know about the attack? The Russian and Syrian air force had informed the US in advance of that airstrike that they had intelligence that top level leaders of Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra were meeting in that building and they informed of the US of the attack plan in advance of the attack and that it was on a “high-value” target. And the attack involved the unusual use of a guided bomb and Syria’s top pilots. ” . . . . Russian and Syrian intelligence officials, who coordinate operations closely with the American command posts, made it clear that the planned strike on Khan Sheikhoun was special because of the high-value target. ‘It was a red-hot change. The mission was out of the ordinary – scrub the sked,’ the senior adviser told me. ‘Every operations officer in the region’ – in the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, CIA and NSA – ‘had to know there was something going on. The Russians gave the Syrian Air Force a guided bomb and that was a rarity. They’re skimpy with their guided bombs and rarely share them with the Syrian Air Force. And the Syrians assigned their best pilot to the mission, with the best wingman.’ The advance intelligence on the target, as supplied by the Russians, was given the highest possible score inside the American community. . . .”

Following the attack, US intelligence concluded that there was no sarin gas attack, Assad wouldn’t have been that politically suicidal. The symptoms of chemical poisoning following the bombing was likely due to a mixture of chlorine, fertilizers, and other chemicals stored in the building that was targeted by the Syrian airforce created by secondary explosions from the initial bombing. ” . . . ‘This was not a chemical weapons strike,’ the adviser said. ‘That’s a fairy tale. . . .”

The symptoms of chemical poisoning following the bombing was likely due to a mixture of chlorine, fertilizers, and other chemicals stored in the building that was targeted by the Syrian airforce created by secondary explosions from the initial bombing. ” . . . . A Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) by the U.S. military later determined that the heat and force of the 500-pound Syrian bomb triggered a series of secondary explosions that could have generated a huge toxic cloud that began to spread over the town, formed by the release of the fertilizers, disinfectants and other goods stored in the basement, its effect magnified by the dense morning air, which trapped the fumes close to the ground. . . .”

The behavior of the Trump administration was not only in direct conflict with intelligence on the attack, but reinforced propaganda by some of the Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists the West has been using as proxy warriors in Syria and elsewhere: ” . . . . ‘The Salafists and jihadists got everything they wanted out of their hyped-up Syrian nerve gas ploy,’ the senior adviser to the U.S. intelligence community told me, referring to the flare up of tensions between Syria, Russia and America. ‘The issue is, what if there’s another false flag sarin attack credited to hated Syria? Trump has upped the ante and painted himself into a corner with his decision to bomb. And do not think these guys are not planning the next faked attack. Trump will have no choice but to bomb again, and harder. He’s incapable of saying he made a mistake.’ . . .”

Program Highlights Include: Review of a Trump administration warning of another supposed, impending “Syrian chemical weapons strike”–a warning that has since been retracted; discussion of brilliant Nazi hacker Andrew Auerenheimer’s orchestration of an “Alt-right” online intimidation campaign against CNN employees; Auerenheimer’s current residence in Ukraine; the ominous possibility of the activation/manipulation of the NSA cyber-weapons installed on Russian computer networks by a third party (perhaps someone with the capabilities of the brilliant Auerenheimer); review of the observations by a German professor–opposed to Nazism/Hitler–who described the essence of what it was like, subjectively, to live through the rise of Hitler–his observation presented in the context of the ODNI’s decision not to release even a fully-redacted version of the intelligence report on “Russian meddling” in the U.S. election: ” . . . . . . . . What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise, to receiving decisions deliberated in secret, to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand because of nationality security, so dangerous that even if the people the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. . . .”

With the election over, the Trumpenkampfverbande is now positioned to solidify its primary function—the successful transition of the Underground Reich from a clandestine institutional element into a broad-based, above-ground mass movement.

Closing his campaign with an overtly anti-Semitic tweet: “ . . . . From a technical and thematic perspective it’s a well made ad. It’s also packed with anti-Semitic dog whistles, anti-Semitic tropes and anti-Semitic vocabulary. I’m not even sure whether it makes sense to call them dog whistles. The four readily identifiable American bad guys in the ad are Hillary Clinton, George Soros (Jewish financier), Janet Yellen (Jewish Fed Chair) and Lloyd Blankfein (Jewish Goldman Sachs CEO). . . . This is an anti-Semitic ad every bit as much as the infamous Jesse Helms ‘white hands’ ad or the Willie Horton ad were anti-African-American racist ads. Which is to say, really anti-Semitic. You could even argue that it’s more so, given certain linguistic similarities with anti-Semitic propaganda from the 1930s. But it’s not a contest. This is an ad intended to appeal to anti-Semites and spread anti-Semitic ideas. . .”
Again, Trump has formally legitimized Nazi/white supremacist elements: “. . . .’Trump has shown that our message is healthy, normal and organic — and millions of Americans agree with us,’ said Matthew M. Heimbach, a co-founder of the Traditionalist Youth Network, a white nationalist group that claims to support the interests of working-class whites. It also advocates the separation of the races. . . . ‘For racists in this country, this campaign has been a complete affirmation of their fears, worries, dreams and hopes,’ said Ryan Lenz, the editor of the Hatewatch blog at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks such groups from its headquarters in Montgomery, Ala. ‘Most things they believe have been legitimized, or have been given the stamp of approval, by mainstream American politics to the point now where it’s no longer shameful to be a racist.’ . . . .”

Trump’s campaign will include the overt fascists who have supported him. ” . . . . ‘I have been very surprised that we have not seen attractive, well-spoken, racially aware candidates running for local office,’ Jared Taylor, head of the white nationalist American Renaissance publication and annual conference, told TPM in a Wednesday phone call. ‘I think this will be inevitable, and I think that Trump will have encouraged this. That our people will run for school board, city council, mayor, all that I anticipate certainly.’ . . . .”

Trump’s “alt-right” campaign manager Stephen K. Bannon is being considered for White House Chief of Staff: “President-elect Donald Trump is strongly considering naming his campaign CEO Steve Bannon to serve as his White House chief of staff, a source with knowledge of the situation told CNN on Thursday. . . .”

In FTR #906, we noted the highly partisan position taken by FBI director James Comey in the campaign, as well as noting the media prominence given to the spurious book “Clinton Cash,” authored by Koch brothers’ protégé Peter Schweizer (aided by Breitbart editor and Trump campaign manager Stephen K. Bannon.)

It turns out that Comey’s (probably) decisive last-minute intervention in the campaign may well have been precipitated by a “Trumpenkampfverbande” faction within the FBI, who were taking their cues from “Clinton Cash!”

Program Highlights Include: The Trumpenkampfverbande’s compilation of an enemies list, a la Richard Nixon; the stunning acquittal of the Bundy Brigade, after their illegal occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife refuge; reflections on the implications of that acquittal against the background of the massive Trump faction within the FBI; Alfa Bank consultant Richard Burt’s role as a foreign policy advisor to Donald Trump; Burt’s position as Regan’s ambassador to Germany; Burt’s lobbying on behalf of a natural gas pipeline financed, in part, by major German corporations; review of the links between Alfa Bank and the Trump organization; review of the links between Alfa Group and Marc Rich’s operations; review of James Comey’s investigations of Marc Rich; speculation about the possible role of the Alfa/Trump and Alfa/Rich links in Comey’s behavior during the campaign.

Continuing our analysis of the high-profile hacks and “Team Snowden,” we begin with analysis of some cryptic tweets that Snowden issued, shortly before the “Shadow Brokers” announced their pilfering of NSA cyberweapons. The possibility that the tweets were a signal to release the information is one to be considered.

Much of the program reviews key points of information from FTR #923 and other broadcasts: Russia appears to have been wrongly fingered for the DNC hack released by WikiLeaks; the Shadow Brokers’ supposed hack of the NSA’s servers does not appear to have been a hack at all but the work of an insider who downloaded the files onto a USB drive; the files offered up by the Shadow Brokers were from 2013, when Snowden undertook his operation.

Snowden has supported the cover story for the NSA non-hack–that it was, indeed, a hack (it probably wasn’t) and that Russia was behind it, which was probably not the case.

A chief suspect in the release of the NSA files is Jacob Applebaum, the WikiLeaker who appears to have facilitated Snowden’s journey from Hawaii to Hong Kong. The program reviews Applebaum’s hostility to Hillary Clinton, comparing it to the so-called “Shadow Brokers'” hostility to Clinton, echoing the views of Trump, Assange and Applebaum. The broadcast reviews the fact that the “Shadow Brokers” used an e-mail account in Germany that has been recalcitrant to attempts at penetrating its users’ information.

The program reviews Applebaum’s presence in Germany, along with other key members of the WikiLeaks/Team Snowden cadre.

Program Highlights Include: review of the fact that Snowden (at the time he set out to subvert the NSA), Applebaum and other high-profile “privacy activists” have documented links to the CIA; a look at Donald Trump, Jr. who has been active in tweeting and re-tweeting “Alt.right” racist and anti-Semitic memes; Trump, Jr.’s expressed willingness to run for office.

Supplementing and summing up the exhaustive “Eddie the Friendly Spook” series, this program sets forth the Snowden “psy-op” and the high-profile hacks against the background of Lee Harvey Oswald, the U.S. spy infiltrated into the Soviet Union and then into leftist organizations in the United States. Oswald was framed for JFK’s assassination and then killed before he could defend himself.

Whereas Oswald was portrayed as a villain, Eddie the Friendly Spook’s operation is the obverse, with Snowden decamping first to China and then to Russia, and being portrayed as a hero.

Snowden is not only a spy but a fascist, who advocates the elimination of Social Security and the return to the gold standard.

Snowden’s Russian sojourn appears to have been arranged by WikiLeaks, which also appears to have arranged his flight to China from Hawaii. (Snowden’s journey to Hawaii appears to have been facilitated by Jacob Applebaum, who may be behind the “Shadow Brokers” alleged hack of NSA cyberweapons.) It was Snowden’s journey to Moscow that threw Obama’s “reboot” with Russia under the bus.

In this program, we examine information indicating that Russia has been framed for the “Shadow Brokers” alleged hack of the NSA, much as it appears to have been framed for the DNC hack. Indeed, with both the DNC hack and the “Shadow Brokers” non-hack of the NSA, the evidence points increasingly toward “Team Snowden” and Eddie the Friendly Spook himself.

In that context, we again point to “The Obverse Oswald.” We strongly suspect that “Team Snowden” may have had something to do with this. Snowden is in Russia and working for a computer firm. The (frankly lame) framing of Russia for the DNC hack and the “Shadow Brokers” non-hack of the NSA reminds us of the process of “painting Oswald Red.” After reviewing information about the political, ideological and rhetorical continuity between Ron Paul (Snowden’s and Julian Assange’s Presidential candidate of choice), David Duke and Donald Trump and his “alt.right” associates, the program reviews the apparently deep and ongoing collaboration between Julian Assange, WikiLeaks and Donald Trump’s dirty tricks specialist Roger Stone.

The program reviews at length the overwhelming probability that Russia was framed for the DNC hacks. Tackling the “Shadow Brokers'” penetration of NSA cyberweapons technology, we note that the evidence that this was done by Russia is very poor. The bitcoin auctioning of the cyberweapons is extremely unlikely, as is the public announcement of the so-called “hack.” In addition, the announcement of the so-called “hack” is done in a comical broken English, reminiscent of the Boris and Natasha cartoon characters from the early 1960’s.

Next, the program sets forth the hypothesis that, rather than a “hack,” this was more likely an insider penetration of NSA and downloading of the files onto a USB stick. Longtime NSA observer James Bamford points a finger of suspicion at Jacob Applebaum, the WikiLeaker who appears to have facilitated Snowden’s flight from Hawaii to Hong Kong. Applebaum is a resolute opponent of Hillary Clinton, and the Shadow Brokers’ broken English targeted the Democratic nominee as well.

It is more than a little interesting that Edward Snowden has gone on record saying that Russia was behind this event and that it was a hack. The evidence of Russia being behind the Shadow Brokers and this event being a “hack” is very poor. Nonetheless, Snowden is giving credence to the cover story for this event.

Program Highlights Include: The use of a German e-mail provider that has been resistant to government attempts at transparency; review of the presence in Germany of Applebaum, Sarah Harrison (Assange’s former girlfriend and the woman who assisted Snowden’s flight from Hong Kong to Moscow), Laura Poitras (close associate of Snowden and Glenn Greenwald) and Peter Sunde (who founded the Pirate Bay site on which WikiLeaks inititially held forth); rumination about the possibility that Snowden and Applebaum may have collaborated in the context of the “Shadow Brokers;” review of the links between the CIA-derived Broadcasting Board of Governors and Jacob Applebaum; review of Eddie Snowden’s work for the CIA at the time he chose to leak NSA documents.

QUICK: How many Presidential candidates can you name who kept a book of Adolf Hitler’s speeches by their bedside? Donald Trump does. For many years, what Mr. Emory terms “The Underground Reich” has been a fundamental point of discussion and analysis in these broadcasts and posts. In the third program analyzing the Donald Trump campaign, we examine the “Trumpenkampfverbande,” its political antecedents and adherents. Exemplifying, and networking with, generations of fascists and fascist organizations, the Trumpenkampfverbande embodies the emergence of the Underground Reich into plain view. A signature element of Trump’s campaign is his resuscitation of the “America First” slogan and concept, a manifestation both of his thinly-veiled appeal to Nazi and white supremacist elements and his willingness to cede dominance over world affairs to a German-dominated “third power bloc.” The America First concept mobilizes powerful feelings among those feeling overwhelmed and left behind by political and economic developments globally and in the United States. We note that the “original” America First was financed by Nazi Germany. Trump’s invocation of America First exemplifies the nature of his political heritage and allegiances. One of his top advisers Joseph E. Schmitz, “obsessed with all things German” and, according to associates, someone who “fired the Jews” (from the Pentagon) and manifested Holocaust denial. This is not atypical of “Team Trump.” One of the most important figures in mainstreaming “alt right” (i.e. Nazi, white nationalist and anti-Semitic) attitudes has been Breitbart’s Steve Bannon, now essentially running the Trump campaign. Trump and his campaign have a habit of re-tweeting information from “alt right” websites and message boards. Of primary significance in analyzing Trump concerns the main financial backer of his real estate projects–Deutsche Bank. In addition to the fact that this places a potential President in the position of owing upwards of $100 million to an institution that has openly defied U.S. regulatory positions, Deutsche Bank is a primary element of the remarkable and deadly Bormann capital network, about which we speak so often. Program Highlights Include: Analysis of the possibility that Trump’s father was in the Ku Klux Klan; review of Trump’s association with former Axis spy Norman Vincent Peale; review of Trump’s counsel–Senator Joe McCarthy aide Roy Cohn; Trump’s additional financial backing from George Soros, who got his start in business “Aryanizing” Jewish property during the Holocaust; Trump’s tweeting of a campaign ad featuring Waffen SS-clad World War II re-enactors; The enthusiastic suppoprt Trump has received from David Duke.

In previous posts, we have noted that Al Jazeera is run by the Muslim Brotherhood. We have also dealt with the Nazi tract “Serpent’s Walk,” which focuses on a Nazi takeover of the U.S. in the mid-21st century. Fundamental to the scenario presented in the book is the Underground Reich/SS money component buying into the opinion-forming media, in order to swing the American people’s point of view in a pro-Nazi direction. With Al Jazeera among those media outlets gaining gravitas in the U.S., it is worth examining the network in detail to understand its relationship with the Brotherhood, an Islamic fascist organization. The Al Jazeera network’s shepherding of a report about the late Yasser Arafat having been poisoned with polonium 210 affords us an ideal opportunity to evaluate the outlet’s journalistic integrity. (Polonium 210 is a highly radioactive substance.) The “investigation” is an Al Jazeera “op” from start to finish, overseen by a former U.S. State Department security officer. The alleged “poisoning” is: extraordinarily unlikely; at variance with the conclusions of the French medical team attending Arafat and in conflict with the conclusions of the PLO leader’s personal physician, who attributed the death to AIDS.

With another anniversary of the 9/11 attacks having passed, it is interesting to contemplate the ongoing damage from the unlearned lessons concerning those attacks. Before discussing ongoing support for Caucasian and Chechen jihadist elements by elements of U.S., Western and Saudi intelligence, the program highlights the bogus intelligence about a supposed “Russian invasion” of Ukraine that does not appear to have occurred at all. Much of the supposed intelligence on this “invasion” comes from satellite photos, showing what are supposed to be Russian armored and artillery elements in Ukraine. These photos are NOT from U.S. reconnaissance satellites, but come from a private company–DigitalGlobe. Founded by veterans of Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” program (The Strategic Defense Initiative), the company’s executives have CV’s involving work for Bain (Mitt Romney’s firm) and IHS, the Thyssen/Bornemisza group firm that is the epicenter of the Peak Oil doctrine. Accessing archival information about support for Chechen Islamists by elements of U.S., Western and Saudi intelligence, the program notes the involvement of Ukrainian fascists from the UNA/UNSO organization in Chechnya and the Caucasus. The reported combat expertise of ISIS is said by some analysts to have evolved from the participation in that group of Chechen veterans, making our slippery slope involvement against the group blowback–to an extent–from the West’s proxy warriors in the Caucasus. As was the case in Afghanistan–where the U.S. fought a bloody, indecisive war against jihadists crafted to fight against the U.S.S.R. and subsequently Russia–we once again find American military forces engaged against jihadists being used as proxy warriors by elements of the transnational corporate elite and allied national security elements. The program concludes with a closer look at the historical background to some recent propaganda in the New York Times’ op-ed page, ascribing Russian responsibility to the 1999 assassinations of Armenian political leaders by the Dashnags, an Armenian nationalist group with longstanding historical links to Ukrainian fascists and other elements of international fascism and the Underground Reich.